There are certain topics in Science-Based Medicine (or, in this case, considering the difference between SBM and quackery) that keep recurring over and over. One of these, which is of particular interest to me because I am a cancer surgeon specializing in breast cancer, is the issue of alternative medicine use for cancer therapy. Yesterday, I posted a link to an interview that I did for Uprising Radio that aired on KPFK 90.7 Los Angeles. My original intent was to do a followup post about how that interview came about and to discuss the Gerson therapy, a particularly pernicious and persistent form of quackery. However, it occurred to me as I began to write the article that it would be better to wait a week. The reason is that part of how this interview came about involved three movies, one of which I’ve seen and reviewed before, two of which I have not. In other words, there appears to be a concerted effort to promote the Gerson therapy more than ever before, and it seems to be bearing fruit. In order to give you, our readers, the best discussion possible, I felt it was essential to watch the other two movies. So discussion of the Gerson protocol will have to wait a week or two.

In the meantime, there’s something else that’s been eating me. Whether it’s confirmation bias or something else, whenever something’s been bugging me it’s usually not long before I find a paper or online source to discuss it. In this case, it’s the issue of why scientific studies are reported so badly in the press. It’s a common theme, one that’s popped upon SBM time and time again. Why are medical and scientific studies reported so badly in the lay press? Some would argue that it has something to do with the decline of old-fashioned dead tree media. With content all moving online and newspapers, magazines, and other media are struggling to find a way to provide content (which Internet users have come to expect to be free online) and still make a profit. The result has been the decline of specialized journalists, such as science and medical writers. That’s too easy of an answer, though. As is usually the case, things are a bit more complicated. More importantly, we in academia need to take our share of the blame. A few months ago, Lisa Schwartz and colleagues (the same Lisa Schwartz who with Steven Woloshin at Dartmouth University co-authored an editorial criticizing the Susan G. Komen Foundation for having used an inappropriate measure in one of its ads) actually attempted to look at how much we as an academic community might be responsible for bad reporting of new scientific findings by examining the relationship between the quality of press releases issued by medical journals to describe research findings by their physicians and scientists and the subsequent media reports of those very same findings. The CliffsNotes version of their findings is that we have a problem in academia, and our hands are not entirely clean of the taint of misleading and exaggerated reporting. The version as reported by Schwartz et al in their article published in BMJ entitled Influence of medical journal press releases on the quality of associated newspaper coverage: retrospective cohort study. It’s an article I can’t believe I missed when it came out earlier this year.(more…)

Here on SBM we have frequently had cause to criticize the media for poor science reporting and for spreading misinformation. Among many other individual offenders, we have criticized Dr. Oz for promoting alternative medicine on his TV show and gullibly promoting guests who pretend to talk to the dead and pretend to heal people with carnival sideshow tricks. We tend to be negative and critical because somebody has to do it, but it’s not pleasant. For once, I have some good things to say.

The September 12 issue of TIME magazine was a Special Nutrition Issue. The cover featured pictures of food and the title “What to Eat Now: Uncovering the Myths about Food by Dr. Oz.” It devotes 7 pages to an article by him entitled “The Oz Diet: No more myths. No more fads. What you should eat — and why.” This is followed by a 5 page article by John Cloud “Nutrition in a Pill? I took 3000 supplements over five months. Here’s what happened.” Both articles have a rational, science-based perspective without any intrusions of woo-woo. (more…)

I admit that the title of this post is a little inflammatory, but it’s frustrating when reporters call for input and then proceed to write unbalanced accounts of pseudoscientific practices. A case in point – my last post described a conversation I had with a reporter about energy medicine. My interviewee was very nice and seemed to “track” with me on what I was saying. I did my level best to be compelling, empathic, and fair – but in the final analysis, not a single word of what I said made it into her article. For fun, I thought you’d like to compare what I said, with the final product.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Disease has always been with us, but modern, Western medicine is only a few hundred years old.

Before germ theory and pharmaceutical research, the human race devised countless strategies to relieve pain, banish illness and prolong life. Southern Marylanders are keeping a few of these ancient disciplines alive, insisting they have much to teach us, even in a scientific age. (more…)

Matt Lauer and NBC have continued the ignominious media tradition of feigning to bring “balance” to the issue of vaccine safety. In the Dateline episode A Dose of Controversy, which aired on Sunday night, Matt Lauer interviewed Andrew Wakefield, the originator of the MMR-causes-autism myth, and highlighted his work at Thoughtful House, the autism treatment center he created in Texas after he was exiled from the U.K. He also interviewed (as “balance”) Dr. Paul Offit, a renowned expert on vaccines and pediatric infectious disease, and Brian Deer, the British journalist whose investigative reporting on Wakefield revealed the true, dark underbelly of the story. Of course, no balance was required to cover this story, since there is no balance from a scientific perspective. There is the evidence – that there is no causal association between the MMR vaccine and autism, and there is the myth, belief, and dogma (and a smattering of fraud) backing the notion that there is. A good piece of journalism covering this topic would have discussed Wakefield only as reference in the narrative of the story. But then that wouldn’t be nearly as good for ratings. Tension, controversy, personalities, that’s what makes for a good story. And that’s just what Dateline provided it’s viewers. Unfortunately, what it probably didn’t do was ease the fears of parents who have been thrown off course by misleading media stories and the speed-of-light trajectory that has characterized this myth. Worse, by simply shining light on the debonair Dr. Wakefield, the show may have misled even more parents into believing this dangerous myth. (more…)